KHH is Kimberly Hatch Harrison

I'm a former research biologist, and a former classroom teacher. Now I am the head writer and producer at Socratica - a company dedicated to making beautiful educational materials. Look for our videos on YouTube and our apps on the Google play store!

The Socratica Method Archives

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Education

We all think of ourselves as eternal students here at Socratica. That means we get a little thrill every September, even though we’re not in the classroom anymore.

Between us, the Socratica team has a LOT of experience points – both as students and teachers – we’ve learned a lot about how to be do well in school. That collected wisdom is what we’re trying to share in our Study Tips series.

Here’s our latest offering – advice on how to make this school year a great one:

Don’t feel like you have to tackle all 10 tips at once. Try incorporating one or two, and see if it helps. Not everyone has the exact same strengths and weaknesses. But in our experience, these strategies won’t hurt and may actually mean the difference for you. Give it a shot!

SXSW (“South by Southwest” or just “SouthBy”) is a HUGE conference held every year in Austin, TX. You may be more familiar with the arts side of the conference, but did you know there’s an education component? It’s called SXSWEDU, attended by thousands of teachers and administrators.

Socratica has applied to give talks there in 2018 – but it really depends on our panel ideas getting “upvoted.” That’s where you come in!

You can register and vote for panels for free, no obligation. This is a way for the organizers to gauge interest. We’d love for you to show your support for Socratica, so we can share our channel and our experiences with thousands of educators.

Kim is proposing a Case Study of the pathways to becoming an online educator. She and two fellow EduTubers will be discussing their journeys from Scientist, to Teacher, to YouTuber. Her panel is here: Scientist-Teacher-YouTuber: Paths to Online Edu

Michael is proposing a Workshop about how to make higher quality educational videos. He’ll be running the workshop with two other EduTubers who make great looking videos without spending a ton of money. His panel is here: Taking Your Educational Videos to the Next Level

You can see our founders at SXSWEDU in 2018! Please register (free) & vote!

After you register, it’s easy to get lost in the website. You can click these links to go directly to our panels to vote for them! And please upvote other panels that look interesting to you. You don’t have to attend, but if you do, we’ll see you there!

On Monday, August 7, the greater online community is invited to vote and share its input on your session idea through Friday, August 25. The community’s input will amount to 30% of the total score for your proposal. Your proposal will also be evaluated by the SXSW EDU Advisory Board (40%) and SXSW EDU staff (30%) during this time.

The community will have the opportunity to “Vote Up” or “Vote Down” on all session ideas (votes will be kept private) and add comments to each page. We encourage you to use this commenting feature to expand on your session idea, make notes of any updates or changes and even engage with the voting community.

Anyone with internet access can cast a single vote for as many proposals as they would like upon creating a PanelPicker account.

We really appreciate your helping to send us to this conference! It’s a great opportunity to meet other educators and let more people know about the work we do at Socratica. Every bit of awareness helps our channel stay in business. Hope we see you next year in Austin! THANK YOU!

We’re starting with that most important molecule, DNA. DNA provides all the instructions an organism needs to develop, survive, and reproduce.

Before you can really appreciate how DNA works to do all these vital tasks, you must understand the structure of DNA. That’s why we’re starting with this video!

We had a secret weapon for making this video. We knew we wanted to build a model of DNA, but we didn’t want to just buy a kit that snaps together. Honestly – that’s just too easy. It’s all too easy to snap the pieces together without really digesting what you just built.

MorphPen was kind enough to send a 3D printing pen to Socratica for us to try. It’s like nothing else we’ve ever tried before. Sort of like an incredibly pliant, quick-drying clay that goes right where you want it to. We can make 3D sculptures!

We’ve always known how vital it is to draw something, if you want to really understand its shape. Think of all those maps you drew as a child.

This series stars our co-founder, Michael Lee Harrison. Michael is a mathematician, who has a lot of valuable experience under his belt. He got his BS in math at Caltech, and continued his studies at UC Berkeley and University of Washington . He holds an MS in math from UW and is ABD on his PhD…we’ll see if we can round up some more abbreviations for our next profile!

Michael taught math at the college level for several years, where he was a good-humoured and encouraging instructor. He next went into finance, working as a “quant” (quantitative analyst). He then worked at Google as a developer for five years before leaving to start Socratica.

You’ve seen Michael’s work on Socratica for years now, but this is the VERY FIRST TIME he has stepped in front of the camera. More to come soon!

This is the FIRST EPISODE of our new series on How to Be a Great Student! In this episode, we learn about the CORNELL METHOD.

This is a great method for taking notes in class (or from your textbook, or watching a video). There’s no way to remember every word of a lecture. But taking great lecture notes is the first step to getting good grades and being a great student.

The most important rule is don’t write down every word. Listen carefully, then write simplified and abbreviated phrases that capture the main ideas.

When you get home, RE-READ your notes! Proofread them, making corrections as needed before you forget. Check your notes with a friend! In the margin, write brief headers that will cue your memory of each section of your notes.

Finally, write a summary at the bottom of the page so you can quickly tell what this page of notes is all about.

Do you have a different method of taking notes? Let us know what are your favourite study tips in the comments!

Many people use a large frame and suspend a camera overhead in order to do overhead shots. It’s one thing if you’re using a GoPro, but this isn’t something you really want to do with a larger camera with a nice lens. Other drawbacks include the amount of space an overhead frame takes up, and the fact that the camera is not easily accessible. You can’t zoom in during a shot unless you have a sophisticated remote control setup. You can’t easily move the camera from its fixed position, which limits the kind of filmmaking you can do (no pans, tilts, or slider shots).

Today on Socratica Backstage, you can watch how we mounted a large mirror in order to do better overhead shots. We immediately put it to use, filming B Roll and Insert shots for our first video in the Study Tips series, “How to Take Great Notes.”

We release our Backstage Videos early to our Patreon Supporters. Thank you for being our super-fans! Your support means so much to us.

If you are not yet a supporter of Socratica, please visit our Patreon Page and consider joining our team. You’ll be supporting our efforts to make more high-quality educational videos. Thank you!https://www.patreon.com/socratica

You hear a lot of advice as a small YouTube channel. Make more videos! Tweet every day! Shareability! Longer videos! Likes! Annotations! Ask them to Subscribe!

But the big piece of advice we never took was: COLLABORATE.

A rising tide lifts all ships, the saying goes, and the idea is that if your channel can help out another, you should do it. And don’t worry about contacting a channel with more subscribers than you – you could be bringing in a brand-new audience to the bigger channel. Everyone wins.

It’s easier said than done, of course. We’ve tried to pull of collaborations before, but something always got in the way: schedule conflicts, too big of a difference in style, lack of funds.

This time, everything went right, the stars aligned, and the fates smiled on us. We met Kat at an event at YouTube Space LA, and we recognized her from one of our favourite music videos – her cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She’s a singer-songwriter from Japan and New Zealand, who makes “positive surf-pop” that will bring a smile to your face.

We knew we wanted to collaborate with Kat, but it was just a matter of finding a time and place to make it happen. Amazingly, we were both selected to take part in the YouTube NextUp program! This meant we were in the same place at the same time for an entire week, with beautiful filming studios and tons of equipment at our disposal.

SUCCESS!

We hope you enjoy the videos as much as we enjoyed making them.

Here’s the video about Musical Harmony we made for our channel:

And here’s the music video “Human” we made for Kat’s channel:

Remember to tell your friends about Socratica Studios, and encourage them to try our videos and subscribe!

A miracle occurred at Socratica Studios last month. Actually, it happened in Playa Vista, which is about an hour east of Socratica Studios.

Playa Vista is the location of YouTube Space LA (YTSLA). We spent an entire week there, because Socratica was chosen to be in the 2016 class of YouTube NextUp.

What is YouTube NextUp? It’s a program run by YouTube to identify and support promising up-and-coming YouTube channels. Hundreds of YouTube channels applied, and 16 of us were brought to YTSLA for an intensive week-long course in filmmaking and growing your channel. Each channel had an experienced mentor, and we worked all week with experts in the fields of cinematography, lighting, sound design, set design, greenscreen work, etc. etc.

It’s sort of like finding the golden ticket and being adopted by Willy Wonka.

Previous winners include ASAP Science (we’re big fans), Ingrid Nilsen, and Cassey Ho (who we actually got to meet and hear about her experience). So many of them are now well over a million subscribers. It really seems like this is a turning point for the channels in the program.

One of the best things about the NextUp was getting to meet and work with other YouTube creators. Working by yourself can be a kind of an echo-chamber, where you ask yourself, “Self, is this a good idea?” and you answer, “of course it is!” and you don’t question it. You always do things your way, in your comfort zone. Watching the other creators work and helping them with their shoots was an incredible education in how many ways you can go about getting great videos.

Our 2016 Class of YouTube NextUp:

Next time, I’ll include videos from my classmates and tell you more about their channels.

Remember to tell your friends about Socratica Studios, and encourage them to try our videos and subscribe!

Due to popular demand, here is the first of six new states videos we filmed recently. We worked with a new talented presenter, Dylan Rourke.

We invite you to visit the great state of Massachusetts!

Massachusetts, nicknamed “The Bay State,” became the 6th state on February 6th, 1788. It is a state rich in history – the site of many key events in the Revolutionary War. Massachusetts is home to more than 180 colleges and institutions of higher learning (including Harvard, oldest in the nation). Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island are also popular tourist destinations for the scenic shoreline and delicious seafood.

Our series of videos “Visit the 50 States,” gives you a little history and interesting facts about each state. For every state, you’ll learn when it entered the Union, what’s its motto, how did it get its nickname, and see what the flag, seal, and state capitol building all look like. We’ll find the state capital on the map! There’s also fun trivia – do you know the state tree, flower, and bird? Watch and find out!